High Performance Low Cost MALDI MS-MS

Abstract

The invention comprises apparatus and methods for rapidly and accurately determining mass-to-charge ratios of molecular ions produced by a pulsed ionization source, and for fragmenting all of the molecular ions produced and rapidly and accurately determining the intensities and mass-to-charge ratios of the fragments produced from each molecular ion.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]Many applications require accurate determination of the molecular masses and relative intensities of metabolites, peptides and intact proteins in complex mixtures. Time-of-flight (TOF) with reflecting analyzers provides excellent resolving power, mass accuracy, and sensitivity at lower masses (up to 5-10 kda), but performance is poor at higher masses primarily because of substantial fragmentation of ions in flight. At higher masses, simple linear TOF analyzers provide satisfactory sensitivity, but resolving power and mass accuracy are low. A TOF mass analyzer combining the best features of reflecting and linear analyzers is required for these applications.[0002]An important advantage of TOF mass spectrometry (MS) is that essentially all of the ions produced are detected, unlike scanning MS instruments. This advantage is lost in conventional MS-MS instruments where each precursor is selected sequentially and all non-selected ions are lost. This limita...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0006]The invention comprises apparatus and methods for rapidly and accurately determining mass-to-charge ratios of molecular ions produced by a pulsed ionization source, and for fragmenting the molecular ions produced and rapidly and accurately determining the intensities and mass-to-charge ratios of the fragments produced from each molecular ion.

[0010]In one embodiment a pulse rate of 5 khz is employed, allowing data to be acquired much faster than in existing TOF instruments typically limited to rates of 200 hz or less. Any combination of the key elements of the TOF analyzer can be employed in this invention but in a preferred embodiment these elements are combined to optimize the sensitivity, dynamic range, and mass accuracy for both precursors and fragments.

Problems solved by technology

Time-of-flight (TOF) with reflecting analyzers provides excellent resolving power, mass accuracy, and sensitivity at lower masses (up to 5-10 kda), but performance is poor at higher masses primarily because of substantial fragmentation of ions in flight.

At higher masses, simple linear TOF analyzers provide satisfactory sensitivity, but resolving power and mass accuracy are low.

All of these improvements will have limited impact unless the instruments are reliable, cost-effective, and very easy to use.

All of these approaches have been used to successfully produce MS-MS spectra following MALDI ionization, but each suffers from serious limitations that have stalled widespread acceptance.

Furthermore, the sensitivity, speed, resolution, and mass accuracy for the first two techniques are inadequate for many applications.

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